Franz helped Toni through the window with a boost and then climbed in after her.
They were inside an office with a computer and file cabinets. Both had their guns out and moved toward the inner door. Just as they were about to open the door, six more shots rang out. First three and then three more.
Jake, Toni thought. “Let’s go,” she whispered loudly.
As Toni cracked the door open, she could see red overhead lights in the hallway. Then there was movement, followed by shots that busted through the door next to her hand. She shoved the door closed, locked it, and backed against the inner wall.
“Maybe the front door would have been better,” Toni said.
“No,” Franz said. “They would have had that covered with video. This was unexpected.”
“It might divert some fire away from Jake,” she said.
Franz checked his gun and said, “Let me go.”
His determined look was new to her. “They got us pinned down, Franz.”
“I don’t care,” he said and coughed against his shirt sleeve.
“You’re bleeding,” she said. “The glass cut you.”
He didn’t even look at his arm. “They killed my Anna. And they’ll pay for that.”
“Your Anna?”
“She was like a daughter to me.”
With a brush from his large hand, he pushed Toni aside like she was a small child. Determined, Franz opened the door, shoved his gun out and shot twice. Then he rushed out, a man possessed, his gun firing as he went.
Toni heard shots from the other direction, more from Franz, more from the other side, and a couple final shots from Franz, followed by the sound of a body crashing to the ground. Franz came back into the office holding his stomach with his left hand. She locked the door behind him.
“One down,” Franz said, a look of relief on his face. Maybe a slight smile as he slumped to the ground and put a new magazine in his gun.
“Franz,” she said, “you’re hit pretty bad.”
He looked at the desk and said, “Get me that stapler.”
Toni turned and then looked back at him in disbelief.
“I’m kidding,” Franz said. “You have to admit it was funny.” His hand held tight over his wound as his face grimaced and smiled simultaneously.
She checked his back and saw that the bullet had gone through and through. Jesus. He had to be in major pain. She found his cell phone and said, “You need to call the local Polizei and an ambulance. Give them your location.”
“Not until we get these bastards,” he said, his voice gruff and losing strength. “They don’t deserve to go to prison. Besides, the Polizei will only be forced to extradite them.”
She knew he was right. “You call and then we’ll get them.”
Franz agreed with a nod. As he called, she went to the door to peek out. Nothing. She didn’t have a choice. She’d have to leave Franz there and help Jake. She heard tires squealing outside and seconds later a major crash out front. Then the sound of a car alarm.
The shots had been muffled, but Alexandra heard them nonetheless. She was supposed to wait for Jake’s signal, which she did, but then the shooting started almost immediately following his text message.
She’d punched the gas on her car and squealed the tires heading toward the Russian cellular front company. As she got close to the front door, she saw someone starting to exit the main door. She powered up her car and turned the wheel at the last second, jumping the curb and smashing it into the front entrance, sending the man scurrying back inside.
Shoving the air bag away from her, Alexandra pulled her gun and got out, rushing to the side of the front door. Thinking she was being watched, she turned and saw the camera pointing toward the front door. With a quick shot, the camera exploded.
Alexandra quickly looked around the open door and pulled her head back just as fast. Two shots came past her and shattered into her windshield. She smiled. All right, you Russian assholes. I’ve got you right where I want you. She swung her arm around the door and shot twice. “Take that, you Russian pigs,” she yelled in German.
Then she scooted back around the door frame, her body against the outer wall. She could have used a comm link to Jake right now. She didn’t like working blind.
35
Jake moved to his left and peered around the shelves, thinking he might have to retreat back through the door if he couldn’t find a better way forward. As he contemplated that, he heard glass shattering, followed by shots. More shots. Then he was sure he heard a car crash out front, with more shots a few seconds later. Somehow he thought about Toni first, figuring she might be there with Franz. But when he heard Alexandra yelling out front in German, he smiled. She was all right. He could have used a comm link to her. Instead, he turned his phone on quickly and called her.
“You all right?” he asked her when she picked up.
“Yeah, I’ve got the front covered,” Alexandra said.
“I’m in the back,” he whispered. “A storage room with cell phones. Hang on. I’m getting another call.” He hit another button to switch to the other caller. “Yeah?”
“Where are you?”
It was Toni.
“In the far back. A storage unit. Alexandra has the front door covered.”
“There’s no way out,” Toni said. “Franz and I have the back offices covered.”
Suddenly bullets broke the silence around him. He ducked back farther against the wall.
“You all right?” she asked.
“Yeah. Better go. I’ll tell Alexandra where you are.” He switched back to Alexandra and told her where Toni and Franz where. Hopefully nobody would get shot by crossfire. Movement at the other end of the room. The opposite side from where he’d shot the man.
“Jake Adams,” a man yelled out.
He didn’t move.
“I don’t care about those others,” the man said, his words infested with a Russian accent. “I must say. You have been fun to play with.”
Jake shot at the sound of the voice.
“Not even close,” the man said.
Now Jake couldn’t help himself. “Major Viktor Pushkin.”
“Major?” The man laughed. “I’m a colonel now.”
“Just like your big brother, Yuri?”
The man yelled something in Russian and Jake only understood part of it. Something about Jake servicing himself like a contortionist. “I don’t think that’s physically possible,” Jake said. “Although I’m sure many have tried.”
“You’ve got some balls, Adams,” the Russian growled. “You kill my brother and then make a mess of my work.”
Jake considered that and wasn’t sure what to think. “First of all, asshole, I didn’t shoot Yuri. Someone else did that. But your brother did try to have me killed more than once.”
“If he had wanted you dead, he would have done it in Berlin many years ago.”
So Viktor Pushkin knew about that. Jake didn’t know it at the time, but Yuri had been responsible for capturing Jake back in the Cold War days and torturing him for more than two weeks in a crappy warehouse along the Spree. Where Jake first learned to hate rats. He’d been beaten senseless, starved to near death, and struck again until his skull was fractured more than once, his ribs broken front and back. He felt the pain again now as he thought back on that time.
“It wasn’t from lack of trying,” Jake said.
“You were spying on our missile production,” Viktor said.
“I was proving that your missiles were a piece of crap,” Jake screamed.
“You cried like a baby.”
Now that was a lie. He had screamed in pain. Any man would have. But he hadn’t cried. Real men from Montana didn’t cry, he had always been told.
“Do you have anything you’d like to say before I send you to your maker,” Jake said. “Maybe you should go to the bathroom first so you don’t piss your pants like Yuri did when he was shot.”